


lightning flashes (and you are free)

by CharlotteDaBookworm



Series: storm dad & sunshine son [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Branding, Canon I Hardly Know Her, Canon Timeline is like tape that I wrapped in a ball and chucked out of the window, Dehumanization, Experimenting on a child, Family Fluff, Father-Son Relationship, Friendship, Gen, Grief, Growing Up, Human Experimentation, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Experimentation, Prompto Ulric AU, Psychological Torture, Royal Bastard AU, Unethical Experimentation, background Crowe Altius/Selena Ulric, background Mama Ulric/Mama Ostium, lack of consent, offscreen child death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:40:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22702603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharlotteDaBookworm/pseuds/CharlotteDaBookworm
Summary: Maybe, in another world, he would have hesitated. Maybe, in another life, he would have stuck to his original plan rather than risk getting caught. Maybe, in another time, he would have played it safe.But, here and now, in this one, he looked at his son - pale and silent, shaking, with veins of magic burning against his skin and he unable to reach him, separated by glass and stone and so much more - and he knew that if he waited, if he played it safe, then they wouldn't both make it out of here alive.Nyx looked at his son, unable to even reach out and comfort him as the toddler silently sobbed himself to sleep, and decidedfuck the plan.Morpheus Ulric grows up free, across sun and sea and sky, light of the stars glistening on his beads. Phe grows up with a family that he never doubts loves him and with a father who is his hero.His son grows uphappyand Nyx never regrets his choice.(A boy who in another universe would have been calledPrompto, who would hardly remember the man who he once called father, doesn't either)
Relationships: Prompto Argentum & Nyx Ulric
Series: storm dad & sunshine son [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1632808
Comments: 14
Kudos: 161





	lightning flashes (and you are free)

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own FFXV. this is based upon an au on my tumblr called _Fractured Lightning_ but this is the happy version that I was prompted once on an ask meme and just. spoke to me
> 
> most of the bad tags only apply to the first 7000 words or so, the rest is pretty clear fluff. ish. probably. i think

* * *

* * *

He doesn’t even know about the children until half of them are dead.

They pull him from his glass cage and, at first, Nyx thinks that they just want more blood, more tests, more pain, and he steels himself even as his chest aches and his eyes burn. He won’t show them weakness, he promises himself. He won’t let them see him cry.

It’s a promise he knows will be broken.

(It always is)

Instead of the usual lab, however, they continue to pull him roughly down identical corridors, heading deeper and deeper and deeper into the diseased, blackened heart of this depraved place. He has no idea where they’re taking him, _again_ , and Nyx feels a thrill of fear deep in his bones that he does his best to hide.

_Don’t let them see you hurt, don’t let them see your fear_ , he reminds himself, fifteen and fucking petrified.

(Once upon a time, just months ago, he loved surprises. He can’t even remember why, now)

Then they pull him into a large room, cold steel and bright glass and blinding lights, and all Nyx can do is stare in horror as they force him into a chair and strap him down and shove needles into his veins.

Ten babies float in front of him in individual giant tubes full of some liquid, almost like a womb with the way tubes lead from their belly buttons, and Nyx is going to be sick in a way that has nothing to do with the blood leaving his body.

_They’re just_ babies _._

He doesn’t even want to think about what they’re being grown for, about what they’ll be _used_ for, but his mind conjures enough images that he has to force bile back down his throat.

He can’t bring himself to look away.

One of the scientists follows his gaze and laughs. “It’s a shame what happened to the other half, but this batch seems well enough at least,” he says casually, his hands shake with the useless urge to punch him in the face. “I suppose we won’t truly know until it comes time to remove them from the tubes. That’s what went wrong with the others, you know,” the sick bastard lowers his voice as if he’s sharing some fascinating secret. “Their magic destabilised the moment they left the control fluid.”

Nyx’s heart stops.

_Magic?_

The scientist just removes the needle from his arm and checks the bags of blood, still speaking. “Even with your blood, their bodies can’t seem to accept the magic. It keeps _burning_ them.” A scoff, disgusted, and Nyx shakes. “Still, hopefully, this batch will be better so that we don’t have to wait for another lot to grow. We learned all that we could from the last lot.”

He throws up.

* * *

They throw him back in his cell and he’s almost thankful for it.

His magic _aches_ , wants to rage, and for the first time he’s ready to let it, to just let go and let it burn because he can’t stop thinking about those tiny babies with _his blood_ no bigger than his forearm and the ten dead already and _he doesn’t want to think about what was done to them_.

His magic aches, bubbles in his veins, he can feel his eyes bleeding a burning silver-green and Nyx-

Nyx can’t stop picturing tiny bodies burning behind his eyelids - can’t stop remembering the way that his magic rages across his body, carving deep troughs into his skin, and then imagining it happening to babes too overwhelmed to even scream as they burn to death in their first moments of life and he-

He throws up, again.

It doesn’t help.

He wishes they’d never told him, wishes they’d never shown him, because he doesn’t want to know. He wishes that he could forget, and the guilt burns low and fierce because those children – children who carried _Ulric_ blood and his magic – deserved to be remembered.

But still, he wishes.

(He wishes them a peaceful death)

* * *

That batch is a failure, they tell him.

Nyx can almost hear their agonised screams.

* * *

The next time they come for his blood, Nyx fights. He knows what they use it for, now, and he won’t- he won’t let them do it again. He _can’t_ let them do it again.

He’d rather die than that, than let more children burn, so he fights.

It doesn’t make any difference.

(It never does)

* * *

His magic aches.

His chest burns.

* * *

Nyx wakes up screaming again and again and again, the slack faces of those babies burned into his mind.

He lies shaking, in the corner of his cell, and every time they come for him now, he fights. He doesn’t care if he lives or dies anymore, doesn’t care what they’ll do to him, because he knows he’s never going home and he can’t let them do this.

He can’t let more children burn and die just so Niflheim can have their fun.

Nyx fights.

They laugh at him and strap him down and take the blood anyways.

* * *

He fights. They laugh. They win.

Over and over and over again, they win. Nyx never stops fighting.

His mother had always said that he was too stubborn for his own good.

(his mother thinks he’s dead and Nyx thinks that maybe that’s better, that she doesn’t know him as the boy who killed all of those children with his blood and his magic)

* * *

He fights. They laugh. They win.

Nyx bleeds – from restraints, from needles, from his soul.

* * *

He fights. They laugh.

They tell him the next ‘batch’ is already viable and thank him for his help.

They win.

(They always do)

* * *

His chest aches.

His magic _burns_.

* * *

They start taking him to that lab every day.

He’s strapped in front of the tubes – only five this time and Nyx wonders at the number even as he’s thankful for it, thankful that fewer children are going to die – as they draw his blood and he fights, strains against the restraints, tries to bite them around the bit in his mouth, but it doesn’t matter. They take what blood they need and then, they make him sit there.

Sit there and _watch_ , every day, as the babies grow in those tubes and develop tiny fingers and toes and little noses and eyes that flick behind eyelids and something deep inside him yearns to hold them, to touch them, to speak to them and keep them close and never let go.

Nyx wants to protect them.

(That’s their entire point)

* * *

Almost a month after they first strap him to that chair again, the children in the tubes are almost as large as the first group he met.

Nyx wakes, every morning, with a scream caught behind his teeth and the image of these babies he’s watched form burning behind his eyelids. He can’t sleep. He hates that they take him to see them.

He’s scared that they’ll stop.

* * *

He whispers apologies in the night and stares at the babies during the day and tries not to think about their exponential growth rate and what it means.

It doesn’t matter.

(He doesn’t want them to die)

* * *

Then they tell him they’ve found a way to stabilise the children. They tell him they’ve found a way to allow them to survive.

They sit him in front of those tiny faces, so close to being born, and make him look into those tiny features and they tell him they need his blood. They tell him that, with regular blood transfusions from him, the babies will live.

That they won’t burn.

And he sits there, staring at the innocent babies of his blood who don’t deserve this, who don’t deserve to _burn alive_ because of his magic and Nyx-

(He closes his eyes and he can hear their screams, he can see the magic carving itself into soft pale skin, can smell burnt flesh and ozone and blood and-)

Nyx stops fighting.

_(They win)_

* * *

His magic burns.

That’s the whole fucking problem.

* * *

They stop strapping him to the chair, stop shoving the bit in his mouth.

Nyx sits silently as they take the blood they need and then they let him stand, let him walk to the tubes, let him whispers apologies to the children contained within even as guards watch him closely and scientists roll their eyes at his sentiment.

He’s there, watching them grow, watching them move, and they stop bothering to take him to his cell for anything but sleep – preferring him close by so they can draw blood. He doesn’t argue, resting his hands on the glass and watching as the smallest of the children twitches closer.

Eventually, even the guards stop paying attention to him.

He’s almost complicit now and Nyx thinks of running, thinks of taking this chance to escape, of even shutting down the machines and sparing the children everything, of just _doing something_ -

And then he looks at the children and thinks of them burning and dying and he stays silent.

He stays silent and he gives them his blood and he hates himself.

* * *

His mother would be ashamed of him.

He is.

* * *

He’s there when they pull them out of the tubes, one by one, and he thinks it’s stupid of them because they’re all so concentrated on their work that they aren’t paying any attention to him and the guards had disappeared entirely two days ago.

He could do anything, could kill them all easily enough, could ruin their work or escape or-

It doesn’t matter.

Nyx knows this as they pull a tiny body – and Selena was that small, in his oldest memories, and fuck she’d hate him too – from the tube and slide a small needle into an even smaller vein. It doesn’t matter because Nyx can’t leave these children, he can’t watch them burn, and guards or not, force or not, they’ve got complete control over him.

They don’t need to strap him down; they’ve already got him tied.

* * *

He feels sick as the last of the babies is pulled from the tubes, as the last needle is slid into the last screaming child, and his blood slowly drains into the baby’s body as filmy eyes blink at him.

There are numbers, tiny but legible, on their arms that he hadn’t been able to see before. They look like barcodes.

Nyx feels sick.

The babies survive. They don’t burn.

(Yet)

* * *

They take him back to his cell where he stays for the next few days, he thinks. He judges time but the bags of blood they take from him but he doesn’t know.

There’s no sky, here.

He misses it.

(He misses home)

Nyx doesn’t know exactly how long it’s been before he sees the babies next, but he knows it’s not the weeks old they look now. It can’t have been more than four days, they’d only come for blood three times, so it’s a shock when he sees the drastically bigger children.

The scientists laugh at him.

“What use are babies,” they tell him as he stares down at them. “We need them to be older.” There are needles in their veins, full of blood and growth hormones both, and Nyx tries to ignore them as he stares in five pairs of Ulric blue eyes and tries to push away the guilt.

They’re alive. Even if they’re stuck here, they’re alive

That’s better than burning, he tells himself and he knows it to be a lie. Nothing is better than this.

(He still can’t let them die)

* * *

“Stop it from crying,” he’s ordered the next time he’s there, the scientist jabbing his hand in the direction of one of the babies who is screaming. The rest of the scientists are too preoccupied with their computers and papers and tests. He wants to snarl, wants to demand they stop calling them _it_ , wants to murder them all.

Nyx picks up the baby as gently as he can, drawing on old memories and avoiding the wires, and hums deep in his chest as he rocks back and forth. The baby – labelled ~~branded~~ only as 14032 – blinks at him, startled out of his crying, and Nyx smiles as best as he can.

The baby just stares, eyes focused somewhere above his head, and blows a gust of air at him.

His smile firms, becoming more real, and he bounces him up and down a little, mood lifting at the offended look on the boy’s face.

A scientist approaches, blood kit in hand. “Put it down,” they order and Nyx does, his chest aching a little as the warm weight leaves his arms and he doesn’t want to – he wants to wrap the children up and never let go, wants them free of this place.

(He wants to rage, wants to burn, wants to fight)

Nyx sits down and lets them take his blood.

* * *

He’s brought back the next day. This time they order him to feed them and he does, one by one, starting with the smallest and working his way up.

Nyx doesn’t want to let them go.

He does anyway

* * *

Every day, they have a new task for him. Something about the children that they don’t care to do even as those same children grow so rapidly that Nyx is terrified – somehow their mental development is keeping up but soon they’ll be ‘useful’.

Nyx doesn’t want them to become useful.

He doesn’t want to see these beautiful babies turned into weapons or destroyed by magic.

But he doesn’t have a choice.

So, he gives them what care he can, what _love_ he can, and he knows that it binds him tighter – that these children are hostage to his own compliance – but he can’t bring himself to care. He’s the reason that they’re in this position.

He’ll protect them.

(He can’t)

* * *

The boy – the scientists call him 14032, but Nyx has taken to calling him Alala in his mind because he screams like he’s going into battle – is crying almost every time that he’s brought to the lab. He’s the clingiest of the lot, his tiny-but-growing fingers always finding purchase in Nyx’s thin shirt and never wanting to let go.

Nyx loves him.

He can’t help it; he loves all of them. Little Alala who clings to him like he’s his only source of joy – and he is, he is and that hurts because they deserve the _world_. Castor and Pollux who are branded 14033 and 14034 and always tried to reach for each other when he was feeding them, completely identical but for the numbers that mark them. 14031 who Nyx hasn’t named yet but was the first to be pulled from the tubes, the largest even now with eyes that scream of the storms the babe has never seen. And Morpheus, the youngest and the smallest, who was often the first to sleep and the last to wake and the scientists called 14035.

Nyx loves them all, loves them so much that he has named them with traditionally Ulric names, and he has never been good at letting go.

Alala’s tiny hand wraps around his fingers and Nyx falls in love.

* * *

He names the eldest Typhus when the boy throws a fit when they try to take him from his arms so that they can run some more tests, his small arms flying this way and that as he lashes out.

One of his fists hit the scientist in the face.

Nyx is terrified.

They take him away.

* * *

All of the children are quieter after that, it’s harder to draw smiles from them, but when he does it’s hard not to tell them he’s proud, to slip and call them by the names that he’s given these children of his blood and not the numbers they’re branded with before their birth.

They look six months old, after actually closer to six weeks, but Nyx is already so in love with them it’s scary.

Cas and Pol are starting to sit up and Alala giggles at him when he pulls faces and Typhus has three shiny teeth and tiny Phe is still tiny but also rolling over the sides of wires and Nyx just.

He wants to give them the world. He wants to take them home and give them a family. He wants to protect them from everything.

All he can protect them from is burning.

* * *

Then he can’t even protect them from that.

* * *

Alala starts screaming and doesn’t stop.

Nyx tries everything, rocking him and feeding him and talking to him, but nothing works and nobody can understand why. They’ve all had their transfusions for the day and none of the rest of them are screaming but Alala won’t _stop_.

He clings to Nyx even as he screams.

The scientists pry them apart and send him away, confining him back to his cell where Nyx sits, shaking, worrying.

His ~~son’s~~ terrified screams echo in his ears.

* * *

Alala dies.

* * *

The scientists examine its batch mates and call 14032 a defect.

* * *

Nyx cries.

* * *

They start taking more blood and increase the number of transfusions a day.

* * *

When they bring him back, the sight of only four ‘cribs’ – made from metal and glass with only the minimum of padding needed to stop them from cracking their own heads open, Nyx hated them – nearly made him burst into tears again.

He holds onto his control by a thread as he feeds and cares for four babies and keeps reaching for a fifth, as Alala’s screams echo in his ears even as the monsters around them dismiss 14032 as unimportan _t (he was important,_ Nyx wants to scream, to rage, to sob. _He was loved and he had a **name** ), _as there are no tiny fingers to cling to his shirt and no death grip he has to extract himself from and the lack of a familiar warm weight against his chest.

It hurts.

And the others are silent, unmoving, and it hurts to put them down and step away as they draw yet more blood but Nyx does it anyway.

He couldn’t protect Alala but he’ll protect these four.

He won’t let them burn.

* * *

Two weeks later, Castor and Pollux start screaming.

They don’t stop.

And then, they do.

* * *

Nyx weeps.

* * *

The rest are moved to a smaller lab, with only two _specimens_ remaining they don’t need nearly as much space. Nyx hears one of them mutter that they need to prep the other lab for the next batch since this one is turning out to be a failure.

His magic burns in his veins.

He uses it to burn them – _Alaya_ and _Castor_ and _Pollux_ and all the others who only had numbers – into his heart. The scientists might cast them aside easily but Nyx will never forget them.

Standing between the two remaining cribs, staring down at children who are only just now sitting up unassisted, he swears that he won’t lose these two as well.

He won’t.

(He doesn’t know what he’ll do if he does)

* * *

Guards stand at the door of the lab every time he’s there and watch him closely.

It almost makes Nyx want to laugh. They’re losing the chains that bind him and yet Nyx will do anything to make sure the last remaining two stay.

They take even more blood.

* * *

He flinches every time Ty and Phe start crying, his heart racing as he lunges to soothe them, to prove to himself that they aren’t going to die, that they aren’t going to burn.

They have to drag him back to his cell each night because he can’t bring himself to leave, the screams of ~~his~~ the three lost ~~children~~ echoing in his ears.

Nyx wakes, thinking for a moment that they’re all gone, that they’ve all _burned_ and it’s his fault, and then when they come to get him he rushes to the lab to prove to himself they live.

He kneels between their cribs as they sleep, humming an old lullaby and promising that they’ll survive.

At night, he traces the names of ~~his children~~ them on his chest and he knows that if he ever gets out of here then the second thing that he’ll do is have them written in ink. He’ll never forget them, and they deserve the world, not some unmarked grave, not _thrown away._

It hurts.

His magic burns.

~~(His _children_ burn)~~

* * *

Nyx frowns at the lack of tubes leading to ~~his~~ the babies veins, turning to the nearest scientist who beams at him. “It was the growth hormones!” They burst out, waving their arms about as they excitedly explain that the growth hormones were causing the _subjects’_ bodies to reject the properties of the transfused blood which allowed them protection against their magic so their bodies started to reject the magic and something else that he didn’t understand.

He wants to both stab them and hug them because they’d figured it out and ~~Typhus~~ 14031 and ~~Morpheus~~ 14035 weren’t going to die but Nyx doesn’t want to think about _how_ they’d figured it out.

Instead, he collapses against the side of the crib and doesn’t even care as the chains around him tighten again as he stares down at two sleeping, healthy faces.

They were going to live.

He can protect them.

* * *

Ty says his first word two days later, pointing at himself and his brother and saying “ _it”_. Nyx wants to cry as he picks his eldest up and cuddles him, still slightly thrown off by the lack of obvious growth since the day before. After more than two months, he was used to seeing visibly larger babies than he’d left.

It had settled the fear that they’d become useful too soon and left him mildly terrified that they wouldn’t become useful _soon enough_. Nyx doesn’t want to consider what the scientists would do in that case.

But he knows what his response would be.

* * *

A week after his brother, Phe frowns at the needle trailing red into his arm and then looks up at the bag with a quiet “ _bloo?”_

He nods and says that yes, that is blood, and ignores the way that his eyes burn with angry tears.

He hates this. Hates that these children are being raised as weapons in a lab instead of growing up free, hates that they’re referred to by numbers instead of names everywhere but inside his head, hates that they’ve never seen the sky and are so used to needles that they hardly even flinch.

Nyx hates that Cas and Pol and Alala didn’t get the chance to say their first words, as much as they would have horrified him.

Phe starts to babble at Ty who babbles back and Nyx forces a smile for them both.

They deserve _so much better_.

They all did.

* * *

~~Typhus~~ 14031 starts to cough up blood.

Nobody can figure out why and the children are quickly isolated from each other with a mutter of “wouldn’t want to lose both subjects” that makes Nyx want to kill them all through his terror.

(It’s a feeling he’s used to)

He stares as Typhus is taken away, crying and reaching out for him with speckles of red still on his lips, and Nyx has to be dragged away because he can’t leave.

(He can’t lose another son)

* * *

Typhus dies.

Even with whatever it is they’re doing, they can’t figure out why.

* * *

Nyx adds another name to his litany.

* * *

He sobs in the corner of his cell, pressed against the glass and remembering three months ago when he’d done to same to say hello to five tiny babies.

Nyx sobs himself to sleep and wakes up screaming.

He waits for them to come to take him back to the lab. They come for his blood instead and Nyx wants to fight, wants to demand to see ~~Phe~~ 14035 but he can’t because he knows. He knows that doing so doesn’t hurt him; it hurts the last of those baby boys and Nyx can’t-

He can’t lose another one.

So, he lets them take his blood and eats the rations they shove at him and repeats his litany as he waits for tomorrow in the hopes that maybe they’ll let him just _see_ him.

When he falls asleep, he dreams of a warm weight in his arms and a quiet voice that used to giggle saying _blood_. He sleeps and he dreams of that child screams, blood spewing from his lips as he reaches out for Nyx and never reaches him, as he screams for him even as he **burns** and all Nyx can do is _watch_ and-

Nyx wakes screams and waits for them to take him back to the lab.

They don’t.

* * *

They don’t let him see ~~his son~~ him for another two months.

He thinks.

(Nyx can hardly remember the sky)

* * *

_“I’m so sorry,” he whispers to his children who are screaming, who are bleeding and burning. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t save you.”_

_They reach for him and he reaches back but he can’t reach, he can never reach, and all he can see as they’re pulled away, one by one, is their blood against pale hair and the numbers burned into their chests and Nyx-_

Nyx wakes, a sob caught in his throat, and he shakes silently in the corner of his cell, mouthing “ _sorry_ ,” over and over and over as he traces four names over his heart.

_I’m sorry,_ he thinks, and then he adds a fifth.

He has no idea where Phe is, but he’s yet another that Nyx has failed; he’ll add a prayer for him too, for the last little boy of five who is all alone in some cold lab.

* * *

Nyx has almost given up when they pull him from his cell.

He knows that Morpheus is alive, is sure of it in the same way that he knew without being told that the others were dead, even if his only proof is the blood they still take from him near-daily, but he’s just as lost to him as his siblings. Nyx doesn’t even think that he’d remember him, now, after two months.

It hurts, but maybe it’s better.

Better that Phe doesn’t remember him, doesn’t remember his siblings, never knows the name he gave him. As long as he’s alive, then he’s at least a partial success for the scientists and that’s definitely better than death.

It _has_ to be better than death.

(Nyx can almost force himself to believe it)

And then he’s pulled from his cell after maybe two months and dragged down a familiar-unfamiliar path and Nyx can’t quite bring himself to hope; they’ve done this before and the results have never been what he wants and aren’t something he likes to remember.

The guards shove him through a doorway without hesitation, moving to stand guard outside, and he stumbles to his knees.

His heart stops when his eyes land on a crying toddler who is sparking sun-silver and, for a moment, all he can think is _not another one I can’t lose the last of them I can’t let him **burn**_ before he realises that the sparks are all there is.

Just sparks against skin, barely enough to even sting.

He isn’t burning, just sparking.

Nyx can’t breathe.

“Make it control it!” Someone barks, shoving him forwards, and Nyx stifles a snarl as he moves towards his kid and pulls him into his arms. The sparks tickle against his skin, barely a tingle of warmth before they’re gone, and something inside him settles.

_This is okay,_ it whispers. _This is right. This is safe._

He wants to scoff because magic hasn’t been safe since he was a child and started to burn, magic was never safe – it’s the reason he’s _here._ Instead, he pulls Phe closer. “Hey,” he croons, rocking him back and forth. “Hey little bird, you gotta put the sparks away love, I know they’re pretty but don’t you need a nap? Aren’t you a little sleepy? You’re putting out a lot of light there…”

Slowly, achingly slowly, the sparks and the cries die down until there’s only a red-faced toddler grizzling in his arms and clutching at his hair. “ _shhhh_ , love. _shhhh_ , I’ve got you.”

“’urts,” Phe whines, blue eyes still flecked with sunspots, and Nyx aches, deep in his chest.

“I know, little bird, I know. I’m sorry,” he murmurs low, letting the cadence and the rumble soothe his kid until he was falling asleep. “I’m so sorry.” He whispers again, grieving the fact that Phe already knew the burn of magic in a less permanent way than his siblings.

They were all too young for it. They’d all deserved better.

And then they pull him from his arms and pull him to his feet and he’s being shoved out of the room and all Nyx can do is glance back at the toddler who is reaching for him even in sleep and _hate_.

He hates them all.

(Maybe it’s time he started doing something about that)

* * *

What Nyx finds, as he’s dragged back to his glass prison, is that he knows where most of the corridors he passes lead.

He’s been to so many of the labs, has had to do so many different tests, that Nyx thinks that he’d be able to map this entire facility with a little thought. It probably wouldn’t have worked except Nyx was chained here by far more than physical bindings and he’d spent a whole two months without guards at all.

Why would he escape when they had his children? They know him well enough to know that he wouldn’t.

And even though the guards had returned now, they were still lax. Nobody expects him to make an attempt knowing, as he does, that he likely wouldn’t succeed with a child in tow. And he’d never do it without him.

But Nyx knows his way around and the guards don’t really watch him and the scientists are far more focused on the hostage for his compliance…

If he’s patient, if he waits, then maybe…

* * *

He wouldn’t even be considering this if the others were still alive, Nyx knows and he feels guilty for it; they’d all deserved their freedom – Typhus, Alala, Castor, Pollux, they didn’t deserve freedom any less than Morpheus does. But Nyx wouldn’t have been able to escape with five children, not until they were old enough to fight for themselves and by then it would have been too late.

Even two children would have been too much, would leave him unable to fight and run properly.

One child though, if he was old enough to know to keep quiet? If Nyx planned it properly?

He could manage one child. At least then one of his children will be able to see the sky, even if it’s only for a short while.

It would have to wait, at least a little while longer until Phe could understand a little more, but maybe…

* * *

He thinks maybe he can do it.

He _knows_ it would be worth it.

* * *

They call him back, every time his kids magic starts to spark out of his control – which is often because Nyx can barely control his own sometimes and he has a decade more experience.

They call him back and they don’t notice the way that Nyx watches as the walk through the facility, as he clocks the guards and the cameras and the staff and the ways that everyone files around, far too focused on getting him to the toddler with stormy magic.

Stormy magic that only ever settles around Nyx.

Which they test, thoroughly, to figure out the distance of after the first few times when Nyx cradled him close and rocked him until he slept and the scientists couldn’t get accurate records. They find that as long as ‘the subject’ spends a few hours in Nyx’s presence – not touch and Nyx hates them, hates that they hold him still on the other side of the lab and make him watch as his kid cries until his magic is under control – then his magic is mostly under control.

* * *

They put his son in the cell next to him.

(Just when Nyx thought he couldn’t hate them more)

* * *

That first night – and every night after – his son cries himself to sleep on his small mattress, pressed against the unbreakable glass wall that separates them and calling for him.

Nyx presses back, hand against the glass, and Phe presses closer like he had in his tube but there’s nothing but cool glass between them. He can’t reach him.

His son is _right there_ and Nyx can talk to him but can’t reach him, can’t comfort him, and he-

He hates them all.

(He hates himself for failing as on the other side of the glass his kid sobs himself into an exhausted sleep)

* * *

Suddenly instead of him being taken away from Phe, it’s Phe being taken away from him to run unknown tests and do unknown things and Nyx despises it.

He hates the waiting, the fearful hours worried that they won’t bring him back.

He hates the tears and the blank-faced look and the pain Phe feels when they do.

* * *

He starts to reach out with his magic in a way that he never dared, before.

It burns, still, but Nyx doesn’t stop – pulling at it invisibly until his head aches and the magic wraps around the figure inches away from him in the best approximation of a comforting hug that he can manage.

Nyx hates that this is all he can manage, that he can’t hug him like he used to, but it’s enough.

_It has to be enough, just for now._

And it makes it easier to control Phe’s magic when his emotions overwhelm him – when he’s sobbing too hard to stop and his magic bursts out and hurts him and makes him cry harder and the cycle continues normally until Nyx can talk him down after nearly an hour of watching him suffer and being unable to help. With his magic, he can calm his sons.

When that doesn’t work, he can force it down, force it to _stop_ , and he hates doing that because he can feel his son’s pain in his magic but it’s better than burning.

Nyx doesn’t want his son to burn.

(He needs to learn that he doesn’t get what he wants)

* * *

Nyx starts to tell stories, every night, of the outside world.

Not of his family, because Nyx is always aware that he’s being watched, but of the sun and how bright it is, how warm and how nice it is to curl up in a patch of sun-warmed dirt. Of the sky and its endless blues and oranges and reds and purples, of the millions of stars that shine in the depths of the night. Of the sea, of its calm, gentles waves and the roaring tsunamis and the choppy coasts. Of the sound that water makes as it strikes stone.

He tells him of food that isn’t rations and isn’t fed through a tube.

And he spends hours describing animals – birds and coeurls and chocobos and moogles and tonberries and everything. Those are the stories that Phe seems to like most so Nyx repeats them over and over, calling on memories that are half-faded by distance now, by over a year of seeing nothing but stone and steel and glass.

He tells him stories, reads him to sleep as best as he can without a book, and he gets as involved as he possibly can just to try and make him laugh, to make him forget.

He tells him stories and does the best to give a boy who was born in a lab hope.

(He tries to give _himself_ hope)

* * *

One day, weeks later, they bring him back and the magic is already starting to burn.

Nyx snarls, reaching out forcefully the moment Phe is pushed into his cell, wrapping his son in his magic and snuffing out the flames but he’s too late.

The top of his arm is marked by a small patch of cracked skin, barely more than a centimetre wide, but he hates it.

He won’t let it happen again, he swears, even as it heals over in the next few days.

He won’t let his son be permanently scarred by his magic like Nyx is. He won’t.

* * *

They don’t give him a choice.

* * *

Phe is brought back later and later each week, his magic always more and more on edge, and Nyx doesn’t know what they’re doing but if it wasn’t for the plan – if it wasn’t for Phe – he’d go and murder them all.

The burns are minor, for the most part, and they heal over quickly.

They always shove his son back into his cell early enough that Nyx can force the magic down before it scars properly but it gets worse and worse each time, his magic growing angrier and more violent as Phe sobs and sobs and sob.

Nyx doesn’t know how to fix this.

He _can’t_ fix this; all he can do is wait until the time is right.

He can’t fix this, and he hates it. What good is he if he can’t even stop his son from crying himself to sleep?

All he can do is be thankful that the burns fade, that Phe isn’t peppered with scars like he is, that at least it hasn’t gotten that bad.

And then, it does.

* * *

_“Just close your eyes,”_ he sings softly as Morpheus cries, reaching out as gently as he can with his magic. _“The sun is going down_. _You’ll be alright, no one can hurt you now_.”

His son presses closer to the glass.

Nyx reaches back.

_“Come morning light_ , _you and I’ll be safe and sound.”_

* * *

“Breathe, baby bird. Just breathe, please. It’ll be okay in just a little bit, love.”

“It _hurts_.”

“I know love, I know.” He swallows, tears burning at his eyes as he looks at his son writhing in pain on the mattress in his cell, separated by these damned glass walls. He can’t do anything and inside his magic _rages_ at that, at the stifled cries of pain that the toddler gives – his skin inflamed and a new burn scar forming on his back that he knows won’t fade this time – but Nyx has already tried to stop this.

His magic just made it worse.

There’s nothing he can do.

He hates it. Hates that he can’t even comfort his son – that he can’t hold him in his arms and hug and tell them that it’ll be alright. But he can’t move up his plans, it isn’t safe for them, he isn’t ready.

So, he does the only thing he can; he speaks.

“Birds are the freest thing in the world, you’ll love them. They fly across the sky – night and day, calm or storm – and they only come down when they choose to, always moving but always knowing where their home is. You’ll see them one day, little bird, I promise you. Just a little longer, then everything will be okay…” He babbles, talking about chocobos and birds and storms to a boy who has never seen beyond the labs in anything but his stories until the magic dies and his baby boy silently sobs himself to sleep.

And Nyx looks at him – at the veins of sun silver magic still fading against his skin, at the drying tear tracks on his face, at his reddened eyes and bloody hands, and the fresh burn on his back – and he thinks about the plan.

He looks at his son and he thinks about how each attack is getting worse. About how there’s less and less that Nyx can do.

He rests his hand against the glass and thinks about how, a week from now, he doesn’t think they’ll both still be alive.

He watches his son sleep fitfully, thinks about the way that he’s slowly dying, and he thinks about Alala. About Castor and Pollux. About Typhus.

Nyx looks at his son, unable to even reach out and hold him, missing the warm weight of him, and he knows that if they don’t escape soon then they never will.

* * *

_Fuck the plan_ , Nyx decides.

* * *

The next morning, they run.

The next morning, thanking some gods, they escape – toddler clutched in his arms as he runs and he runs and he runs and never looks back.

He never wants to put his son down again.

The next afternoon, hours into the forest and heading towards the sea, surrounded by trees and grass and leaves, Nyx introduces Morpheus to the sun and will never forget the smile he gets in return.

By the next evening, they’re free.

* * *

Five weeks later, they’re home.

Nyx and Morpheus Ulric set foot on Galahd and there are no beads in their too short hair, nothing but the clothes on their skinny pale backs and a bundle of rations between them, but they’re home.

They’re free.

(And they’re never going back)

* * *

* * *

A knock on the door has him tensing.

“Hey, Nick.” Brendon pokes his head into the small cabin with a warm smile. “Just wanted to let you know that we’ll be docking soon. How’s little Phoenix?”

Nyx relaxes at the fake names they’ve been using since arriving at the port weeks ago, smiling as much as he can at the other man. “Just put Phe down, thankfully.” He winces at his voice, still hoarse from nearly an hour of singing and humming, and Brendon winces with him.

“Your kid is definitely not a boat lover.”

He snorts. Truer words had never been spoken. “No, he’s a bird.” Morpheus had spent the trip alternating between crying and giving Nyx heart attacks by trying to climb _everything_ so he could be up high.

Brendon laughs, shaking his head. “What did you expect with a name like Phoenix and a songbird for a dad.”

“I’m not a songbird,” he scowls.

“You sing like one,” the ship hand says, dancing easily out of the way of the hand Nyx swipes in his direction. “I’ve gotta go, tell Phoe that I said bye if I don’t see you.”

And then he’s gone, Nyx’s call of “I see where I stand,” echoing after him, and he relaxes again – as much as he can on a ship headed home to a family that probably thinks he’s dead. It’s half the reason he’s been using fake names on a ship that may or may not be smuggling them to Galahd. The other reason is a lot more obvious, even if Nyx isn’t sure they know his name.

He looks down at his son, his face completely relaxed in sleep and curled against him like he almost always is. Phe’s dealing with everything better than Nyx is, is perfectly happy to explore as long as Nyx is in sight and nobody is around, but Nyx can’t bring himself to let him go.

Picking him up carefully, he grabs the bag containing what little he’s scrounged up and very purposefully doesn’t look in the mirror as he walks by.

It doesn’t stop the sympathetic looks he gets from the crew and other passengers as he heads towards the deck.

He’s spent more nights watching his son, terrified out of his mind still, than sleeping himself and he knows it shows.

They step into the sun and the bustling deck and Phe stir in his arms at the sudden burst of activity. Nyx hushes him with a gentle hum of _just close your eyes, you’ll be alright,_ and his son settles, head resting against his shoulder and his weight heavy and comforting against his chest.

And then the ship rocks into place and, before Nyx can blink, he’s standing on the dock staring out at the market with his son in his arms and a pounding heart.

He takes a deep breath and it tastes of sea salt and chilli and fresh leaves and cooking meat. He takes a deep breath and it tastes of home.

_They’re home_.

* * *

He doesn’t go straight home.

Now that they’re here, now that he’s only a short distance away from his family, Nyx realises that he has no idea what he’s going to say. He’s not ready, he thinks, he knows, because they’re not going to be happy. Not when he tells them what he’s done, not when they find out about Phe.

They might even wish he _had_ died, he thinks, and Nyx doesn’t know how to deal with that.

So, he takes himself and his barely awake son on a tour of the market instead. It’s different enough that it would be interesting even on his own – there were other markets closer to home so they’d never really trekked out to the coastal ones – but it’s more fun with Phe, who stares at everything from his arms with wide eyes.

Wandering around, they cover everything from the furs – which his kid loves to run his hands over and Nyx is going to get him all the soft things as he grows up – to the spices – which get an adorable nose wrinkle – to some wooden figures – he stares at them and Nyx wishes he had some money to get the little chocobo Phe seems to love – and the fish – a scowl.

There’s something new around every corner and it’s just as brilliant to Nyx as it is to his son because he didn’t realise how much he’d forgotten. It feels like he’s in a whole new world as people barter and yell and laugh and cook and-

It’s overwhelming.

Which is how they find themselves at a tiny jeweller’s stall at the far corner of the market, away from the hustle and bustle and the yelling, and Nyx stops to look at the bracelets and necklaces and beads just for a moment to _breathe_.

“Are you okay?”

He breathes. Holds his son, who is still wide-eyed and overwhelmed, tighter. Forces a smile. “Fine,” he says, and it isn’t a lie; compared to how he was a month ago? He’s fine.

He just needs a moment.

The stall owner just nods, sharp eyes scanning them both, and Nyx forces himself to look over her wares just so that he doesn’t have to meet them. He’s thankful that she doesn’t mention how young he is, how young Phe is, but then again nobody has.

Nyx realises suddenly that he doesn’t actually know how old he is anymore. “What’s the date?” He asks, wincing when it comes out short and abrupt, but the woman just nods as if things made sense.

“2nd of February,” she says easily, not asking anything else, and some of the tension in his back releases.

The second of February. It’s been more than a year; it’d been summer still when they’d taken him, and he’d been almost 15 then. He’s 16, now, and he…

“Do you make these yourself?” He blurts out, eyes fixed on the well-made jewellery in front of him, and he pulls Phe a little closer. “They’re really good.”

She just smiles. “Thank you. Yes, I made them, I’ve been making them my entire life.” She flicks her heritage braid. “Zara of clan Skald, a pleasure to meet you.” Clan Skald was small, he remembers, and mostly made of storytellers and musicians but they also had good crafters.

He bows his head in greeting automatically. “Ulric,” he grits out hoarsely, forcing the word out past the lump in his throat. “I’m Nyx and this is my son Morpheus, we’re of clan Ulric.” He gestures at Phe, who is peaking out at the woman behind his eyelashes before hiding in his shirt. “Sorry, he’s a little shy.”

It’s easier to say than _my son is terrified of people he doesn’t know because he’s spent most of his life as a lab experiment._

“He’s adorable,” she says, smile widening, and then her eyes drift over his hair and Nyx swallows.

“I- ah. I lost my beads a while back, hair hasn’t grown in enough to replace them yet,” he mutters, trying his best to sound casual, to sound like it was an accident, like it doesn’t _hurt_ to look in a mirror and see the lack and it’s all because he failed and is he even an _Ulric_ even more-

“An accident with a girl?” she asks, eyes twinkling conspiratorially as she leans in, and he blinks.

“I- guess you could say that…”

Zara laughs. “It happens. You’re young, you’ll learn. Romance is the bane of many.”

He can feel a blush creeping up his neck, his ears burning as Zara smiles at him and tells him all about how her husband had utterly failed at courting her and the many mistakes her own children – around Nyx’s age – had made and how it was okay, he’d get better.

Nyx didn’t think he’d be getting romantic advice from a woman his mother’s age today but okay.

“Ah,” Zara says, cutting herself off. “Your boy has good taste.”

He follows her gaze to where Phe is staring at a beaded bracelet done in blues and greens, his tiny hand reaching out towards it when Nyx catches it. “Sea,” Phe says, eyes big.

“I know, it looks like the sea. But I’m sorry Phe, we can’t afford it.” He says and feels like a monster as his son’s face falls but they can’t. They don’t have any money left – Nyx is already going to have to hitch a ride and then hike the rest of the way home – and he has nothing to trade but the clothes on their backs. “We’ll come back in a couple weeks and maybe it’ll still be here,” he offers weakly, hating that this is one of the few things he’s shown interest in, but he can’t get.

Nyx wants to give his son the world. He can’t even give him a pretty bracelet.

“Take it,” Zara says, holding it out to them and watching them both with soft, knowing eyes.

He shakes his head, even as Phe reaches out. “I can’t- really, we’re on our way home, we don’t even have anything to trade.”

Zara of clan Skald just shakes her head, handing the bracelet to his son and smiling as Morpheus holds it like it’s the most precious thing in existence. “Take it. Your company was payment enough. Besides, you and your son are adorable, and I am about to close for the day anyway.”

Swallowing back his first response, that he still couldn’t just take something that obviously had taken so much time to make, he looks at his son who’s _smiling_ as he runs slightly chubby fingers over the beads. “Thank you,” he says instead, low and earnest and so grateful. “ _Thank you_.”

“Swift travels,” she offers, tilting her head in goodbye.

“Strong winds,” Nyx says in reply, bowing his head once more in gratitude before he turns away and heads towards the road.

He glances down at his son, who is happier than he’s seen holding the beads in two hands, and he glances back only once.

_Thank you_.

* * *

The bracelet is meant for an older child. It’s large enough to wrap around Phe’s wrist three times and still be loose enough to be comfortable.

Which is what Nyx does. He wraps and twists it thrice around his son’s wrist, leaving it to hold in place the scrap of fabric that covers that damned brand – sea beads over grey cloth, hiding black ink and the proof of his son’s origin from the world.

Phe runs the fingers of his free hand over it and laughs.

Nyx says another silent _thank you_ to Zara of clan Skald and regrets nothing.

* * *

Nyx gets lost.

In his defence, he’d only been to the ports a handful of times, all when he was young, and his memories are… patchy, sometimes. He remembers where he lives, he knows it’s to the north-west by the border of the western jungles, and he knows he’s walking in the right general direction but he can’t remember the little details of when to turn left or right.

For a moment, he considers just going off-road entirely, just hiking through the jungle until he reached the village because he _knows_ he can still navigate the trees like any good hunter, but a glance down at the drowsy kid in his arms makes his mind up for him.

He asks for directions.

Three times.

He gets there in the end.

(Selena is never going to hear about this)

His mother is outside gardening when they arrive and Nyx hesitates, pausing out of sight, hidden in the treeline. His legs are rooted, his lungs frozen, and he just stares. Mum is _right there_ , literally ten steps away, and Nyx… He doesn’t- he doesn’t think he can do this.

(What if she blames him?)

Phe takes the decision out of his hands by giggling at a butterfly that lands near them and his mother’s head shoots up, her eyes narrowing.

“Who is it.” She demands.

Nyx steps out into the light but when he opens his mouth, no words come out. He doesn’t know what to say.

“Nyx?” His mother’s eyes widen and the step she takes towards him is less graceful than Nyx has seen her taken while injured. She glances over him, over Phe, and then looks him in the eyes and whatever she sees has her face lined with _concern_ and _love_ and Nyx-

“Hi. Mum.”

She pulls him into a hug and Nyx is-

He’s home.

* * *

Phe protests being squished between them eventually and Nyx finds himself sat in a room he hasn’t seen in what seems like forever, his son perched on his lap.

They both stare at everything as his mum gets tea.

(Nyx hadn’t realised how much he’d forgotten of his home)

“Well,” his mother says, direct as always, as she puts a teacup and a bottle down in front of him. “Are you going to introduce me to the adorable little monster on your knee.”

He blinks. “Yeah- yes. Mum, this is Morpheus, he’s mine.” He ignores the way his mum’s eyes widen and something sharp tilts her features as she stares at them both, turning to his son instead. “Phe, this is your nana.”

“Nana?” His son asks, head tilted.

Nyx smiles at him, shoving down the joy at the _question_. “Nana is daddy’s mum, okay Phe? She takes care of me like I take care of you.”

A slow nod. “Nana da’s safe?”

“Yeah, baby bird,” he says, slightly choked. “Your nana’s my safe person. Aren’t you the smartest little bird around?”

Phe grins, bouncing on his knee. “Yes!” And then he turns, ducking a little into his side but waving quickly at his mum. “Hi.”

When Nyx looks at his mother, she’s smiling softly. “Hello, little one, welcome home.”

* * *

Ten minutes later, the door opens.

“We’re hom-” The voice cuts off and Nyx smiles despite the chill in his veins as Selena tumbles over Libertus’ shoulders to find out why he’s stopped. “Nyx?”

He waves at his siblings. “Hey.”

It’s a good thing he likes hugs, the way they both pile on top of him immediately.

(They love Phe and Nyx is happy)

* * *

After a meal, they’re all quickly shuffled next door where Amanda – with only a tight hug and a _I’m so glad you’re safe_ to him and a _call me gran_ to Phe – gets to work drawing up papers with a speedy efficiency that shocks him.

It’d never occurred to him why people were always visiting them, before. When he was young, he’d just thought they were buying _paintings_ and no further because the things she paints are always beautiful and he knows she sells them. Staring around at all the clues, he has no idea how he’d never figured out that Libertus’ mother is a forger.

Which- actually…

Nyx clears his throat. “Ma,” he says softly, waiting until she looks up at him.

“Yes?”

“How did you and mum meet again?” He asks; having a feeling that that story is about to make a lot more sense, knowing that she’s a smuggler. Amanda grins, launching straight into a story he’s heard a hundred times before but takes on a new dimension past _we blew some shit up_ _and snuck into some places we shouldn’t have_.

He shares a wide-eyed look with Libs, who is apparently just as shocked, and his chest warms at the easy understanding – at the _connection_ – there.

It feels like home.

Nyx laughs.

* * *

In less than an hour, allowing time for some paperwork to be sent back to the mainland, Morpheus Ulric is a full citizen of both Galahd and Lucis, with clan history on both sides that stretches back at least three generations.

He tells Amanda to list the birthday sometime in October and everyone, looking at Phe who can walk and talk and is so obviously around fifteen months old, believes him easily.

(He’s the only one who knows it’s a lie and it tastes like blood on his tongue even as it protects his son.

Not that anyone would believe him if he told them that Phe was born less than a year ago anyway)

* * *

Libs lay on his back, holding his nephew over his chest and cooing at him as Phe babbles. “You, sleepy, are the most adorable toddler that I’ve ever seen.”

Phe nods, grinning. “Yes! Phe!”

“Yes, you are, you’re right. You are absolutely adorable.”

Selena, sprawled out with a book in front of her, huffs and rolls her eyes, the same way that she’s been doing for the past week.

He rolls his eyes back. “You’re just jealous that this little one took your place as most adorable Ulric.”

From where he’s slowly running through katas, Nyx laughs, a little red-faced and out of breath. “Please, everyone knows that I was the most adorable Ulric before Phe,” dropping down between them with an _oof_ , he leans over to tickle a squirming toddler. “My boy just takes after his daddy.”

His sister dog piles him as his brother laughs and Nyx wrestles with her even as he keeps half an eye on his son who watches them and giggles.

* * *

“I’m going to head down to the market, you want to come with?” Libertus asks, nearly two months later.

Nyx shakes his head. “I can’t,” he says, glancing over at the cot in the corner. “Phe just went down. Another day, maybe?” Phe loves the market and Nyx is- doing better with them, now. They’re nice for short periods of time.

Instead of immediately agreeing, Libs hesitates and sits next to him.

“Nyx…” he says softly with that little furrow between his eyes that says he’s worried, and he frowns in response. “You know you’re safe here, at home, right? We won’t let anything happen to either of you.”

“Yeah?” Because Nyx- he does know that. He trusts them and he feels safer here than anywhere, he knows his family and he knows his village and they’re all safe here. As safe as they are anywhere.

His brother opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. “You haven’t let Phe out of your sight since you got back.”

Ah.

He looks away, to his son, avoiding Libs’ knowing (but they aren’t, he doesn’t _know_ ) eyes.

“Morpheus is safe, Nyx. I know you want to protect him, but you can’t keep going on like this. You can look away from him for a few minutes, a few hours, nothing will happen.” He says, earnest and worried and Nyx knows he’s right.

So how does he explain that he’s _wrong_? How does he explain the sheer, unrelenting terror that comes with looking away for a moment and knowing his son might not be there when he turns back? How does he explain that he _did_ look away, four times, and that he never saw his children again? How does he explain that they took him, over and over and over, and the time away was the worst he’s ever felt?

Nyx is terrified that if he looks away, he’ll turn back to find his son burning and he can’t-

_Typhus and Alala and Castor and Pollux and twenty other unnamed children_

“I know,” he says instead of anything else because he doesn’t want to talk about it. Nyx swallows, bites his lip, glances at his sleeping son in his cot and his silent mothers leaning on each other in the doorway and his watchful brother beside him. “About that market…?”

Libs grins, slow and bright as a sunrise, and leaps to his feet.

He follows more slowly, unable to stop himself from glancing back, and when he reaches the door Ma pulls him into a hug and Mum brushes a hand over his hair. “ _We are so proud of you_ ,” Ma whispers in his ear and then she pulls back and goes to Phe and Nyx-

Nyx breathes.

It’ll be fine.

(It is)

* * *

He starts to leave Phe in the care of his parents, of Libertus, for short periods – long enough to go for a run or pop off to the market or just breathe for twenty minutes. Mostly while he’s sleeping, to begin with, but Nyx starts trying to leave for just a little while when he’s awake.

Phe adjusts better than he does, happy to spend time with his grandparents and his uncle and his aunt, awed by the attention and the kind words they give him.

It’s hard, every time, especially when Morpheus looks for him.

But he keeps trying – for five minutes, ten, fifteen, until he can manage half an hour without having to check his son still breathes, _still isn’t burning_ , without his heart pounding and his blood rushing in his ears.

It’s hard, but the smiles his family give him make it worth it.

* * *

“ _You_ -” Selena snarls, storming into the room. “Are an _idiot_.”

Nyx blinks, looking up from the piles of washing surrounding him and the shirt he’s scrubbing sauce out of. “Yes? Everybody knows that? Do you need something washed?”

His sister growls and tosses a mud-stained jumper at him that he catches on two fingers. “ _I hate you_.”

“O-kay.” He nods. “That’s fair. Does that mean that you _don’t_ want to join me and Phe for ice-cream when I’m done with this?” He’s pretty sure it doesn’t, ‘Lena loves ice-cream and she loves it better when he’s paying, but still…

She screams, throwing her hands up in the air, and then Nyx is dropping both jumper and shirt and catching his sister as she throws herself at him.

“Hey, hey, I’m here ‘Lena, I’m here,” he says, rocking her back and forth and ignoring the hands that claw at his back and the feeling of being squeezed too tight. She clutches tighter, shaking, and neither of them comments on the damp patch on his tshirt.

“I hate you,” she mutters into his chest, still clutching onto him like a lifeline.

Nyx smiles. “I know.” He glances around at the piles of washing still to do and then back at his sister’s dark head. “Want to sneak out and get that ice-cream now?”

“Hell yes.”

* * *

In late April, Nyx puts this newfound ability to let his son out of his sight to the test.

He wakes, feeds his son, takes a deep breath and then hands the little bird off to his nana who promptly distracts the boy with talk about ‘helping’ her garden today. With a smile at his Ma, a punch from his sister, and a hug from his brother, he walks out of the door for what he told them was a day in the market and the jungle.

And then he walks three towns over to the home of the ancient ink-writer who wrote his heartline and his crow’s feet when he was Selena’s age.

“You’re certain?” Xe whispers and looks at him, dark eyes sharp with knowing and lined deep with age, xir hair a shock of pure white and xir hands crooked with age yet steady as xe holds the paper of the sketch he’d drawn.

Nyx thinks of little Alala, his little battle cry who screamed and clung to him every time he was put down, who was the first that he held and will always hold a special place (cloudless sky etched in silver) in his heart because of that. He thinks of Castor (silver and midnight blue) and of Pollux (dusk purple twined with silver stars), so close to twins that they refused to be fed unless he held them both, their hair a shade darker than their siblings. He thinks of Typhus (silver-white and shining like the moon), big and strong and with eyes so dark they looked like the storm itself, who would always quiet at the sound of his voice and loved it more than Phe does when Nyx sang.

He thinks of them and he’s never been surer of anything.

The ink-written ushers him into a chair without a word, an ancient understanding in xir eyes and sympathy in the lines of xir cracked mouth. “Shirt off, boy.” Xe orders and Nyx strips with the ease of someone who is used to it.

Xe doesn’t focus on the scars, or the _marks_ , and instead eyes the area over his left breastbone. Nyx breathes a sigh of relief.

“This will hurt.”

“I know.”

* * *

Three hours later, bandages wrapped around his chest, Nyx walks back to his home and his son and something in his soul has settled.

Inscribed directly over his heart, a silent memorial to children who have no graves, a voiceless promise to honour their lives, an invisible weight that is comforting all the same, is:

_~~||||~~ ~~||||~~_

_~~||||~~ ~~||||~~_

_Alala_

_Castor_

_Pollux_

_Typhus_

The names of the children taken from his arms and a mark of each of those he knew of who never had a name. It feels right.

_This_ feels right.

He breathes and thinks of them and his heart warms, despite a lingering ache, and he smiles even as he grieves. It was worth it, he knows. For them, everything was worth it.

(Nyx goes home, and he picks up his son and Phe curls up on his chest, resting his head directly over his heart and he doesn’t wince. For the first time in a long time, he has all of his children with him.

Any pain is worth that)

* * *

“Morpheus,” he calls, forcing his laughter down and trying for stern. It doesn’t work. “Gran needs her leg back.”

Actually, his ma seems happy enough to lounge on the sofa with a grin and a sketchbook in hand as Nyx chases his son through the house, but maybe appealing to Phe’s love of his gran will help.

His son just pouts, pulling the leg closer. “ _Pretty_ ,” he says, chubby fingers tracing the swirling colours of blues and greens and pinks that make up blooming flowers, explosions of colour against the dark wood.

“Very pretty,” Nyx agrees. It’s his favourite design but for the one his Ma had worn when he was ten, at the wedding, with Ulric blue and Ostium greens entwined and dancing together in subtle family crests. “But your gran can’t play with you outside without her leg.”

Phe hesitates, torn between the leg and playtime with gran, before he runs over to her and gives her the leg – already tugging at her hand to get her to move. “Playtime!” He cheers.

“I don’t remember agreeing to this,” his ma mutters, eyes narrowed as she stands.

Nyx smiles. “You’re the ones who wanted me to let him out of my sight.”

She eyes him for a long moment, and he knows she’ll get her own back somehow, before she reaches down and tosses his son over her shoulder. Phe screeches, tiny teeth flashing in a giant grin. “Love,” she shouts out into the garden, “our grandson wants to play!”

* * *

Phe screams, his face bright red and cake stained.

“ _’gain! ‘gain!”_ He demands, breathless and high, words slurring together.

Selena tosses him again, catching him easily and with only the slightest of winces as her newly two-year-old nephew screams in her ear and orders her about.

Nyx laughs, plate of cake in hand as he watches his son wrap his sister around his little finger. Libs, a warm weight at his side that Nyx leans into without thought, laughs with him. “This is the best sort of revenge for our childhoods,” he mutters and Libs grins, bright and wide and free.

“We still have to get her back for that thing with the swamp.” His brother mutters back even as he loads more birthday cake onto his plate. “You need to eat more,” he defends himself.

He rolls his eyes. “I eat enough thanks, even if your cake is delicious,” still, he reaches out and takes a bite; otherwise Libs will pout, and Nyx was weak to a pouting Libs. It’s very good cake, if a very bright orange. “And I’m pretty sure we can convince Phe to push her into a swamp when he’s a little older.”

A beat where they picture it.

They burst into giggles, leaning into each other as support.

“What are you two laughing about,” Selena interrupts, collapsing onto a pile of discarded wrapping paper and _okay_ , maybe Nyx went a little overboard on presents but so did everybody else. She points at him and glares. “Your kid is lucky he’s cute…”

“He is, isn’t he,” he agrees, eyes finding Morpheus were he’s running rings around his grandparents with the brightest of grins on his face – so causally happy that it takes his breath away, even after nine months.

His siblings roll their eyes at him and mutter about him being a sap as if they aren’t just as in love with Phe as he is.

Selena forgets to get an answer to why they’re laughing.

* * *

A three-year-old runs into the living room, bubbly and giggling and sopping wet.

Libs curses from the bathroom, appearing with towel in hand and a soaked front.

He grins smugly at his brother, reaching down and plucking his son easily out of the air as he runs past and holding tight to him when he tries to wiggle free, free hand reaching out for the towel which he promptly wraps his son in. “Still think you can handle bath time?” He asks as their mum smirks at them both.

His brother scowls. “He’s a slippery little shit.”

“Shit! Shit!” Phe cheers, muffled by the towel, a mop of blond bubbles the only part of him visible.

Ma cackles as Nyx hands his son off to his gran.

Libertus runs.

* * *

He collapses onto the sofa, exhausted, and just about manages a smile when his mum presses a mug of hot chocolate into his hands. “Thanks, mum,” he mutters, tipping his head to rest on the back of the sofa.

The mug jostles as ‘Lena collapses next to him and he reaches out to bat at her.

She bats back.

“Children,” Mum warns, breaking them out of their tired slap fight, and they mumble apologies. Ma laughs at them both, reaching over to ruffle their hair and laughing again when they complain.

“How does a kid named Morpheus hate sleep so much,” Libs moans as he walks in and, seeing no space, just flops straight on top of them. Nyx gives him the finger and Selena curses, trying to shove him off until mum glares at them all.

Pretending innocence, he sips at his hot chocolate. He sighs. “Dreams, not sleep, unfortunately. Phe likes to daydream; bedtime? Not so much.”

His siblings’ voice agreements.

Their mums just laugh at them.

* * *

“Phe!” He calls. “Time for school!”

The four-year-old skids around the corner, his shirt on backwards and a sock missing. Nyx sighs, crouching down to fix the shirt. “How do you keep doing this?”

“School, daddy! We’re going to be late!” Phe says, wide-eyed and innocent, and Nyx still doesn’t get why he loves school so much.

He laughs. “Where’s your sock then, little bird?”

Morpheus looks at his feet, then around them, and shrugs. “Dunno. Don’t need socks, can we go now?”

“You can’t wear your shoes without socks Phe.” He tries, already knowing it won’t work. His son hates socks at the moment.

Phe scowls. “No socks, just shoes.”

“Morpheus….”

“Gonna be _late_ daddy!” He tugs on his hand, pulling him towards his tiny shoes, and Nyx resists a laugh.

A small bundle bounces off of his head. “Lost something?” ‘Lena shouts as she walks past them into the kitchen. Nyx snags the sock – and the second one that Phe managed to wiggle off in the second Nyx looked away – and wrestles them onto his son’s feet and then into shoes.

“Ready for school?” He holds out his hand.

Phe grasps it.

* * *

Galahd falls.

* * *

* * *

“We could go to Insomnia,” Libs says, pressed against him shoulder to thigh because there’s no space in the tiny motel room for all of them, and the words would be casual but for the familiar rage in his eyes – a rage that Nyx _knows_ , that he once saw every single day, reflected in steel and glass. “I heard they’re opening up the Kingsglaive for refugees. We could _fight_ , we could get our home back.”

The words are quiet and fierce, as fierce as the rage and the determination writ on his brothers face, and Nyx _wants_. He wants to fight, wants to rage, and it burns in his chest, in his heart, the same way that it did three years ago in that cell, watching as one by one children died.

Niflheim takes and it takes and it takes and Nyx _hates_ it, he wants to-

His eyes fall on Morpheus, asleep in Selena’s arms on the tiny single bed in the motel room that was all they could get, his braids a little loose and his cheeks a rosy red and tiny features slack in sleep, and…

And he thinks about Insomnia. About living behind those walls. About how it’s really just another sort of glass cage and he-

He thinks about desperate words and a silent promise made years ago and four boys who he’d promised to live for and four fragile, burned strings attached to his heart that go nowhere, and the burning in his veins fades away.

“Maybe in a few years,” he says softly, his eyes on his son who is so much bigger than the last time they’d run for their lives; he’d fit in his arms, then. He reaches out with his magic, projecting along that remaining cord of fire and moonlight, and watches his son settle even deeper into sleep. “I promised him the sky, Libs. I promised him the _world_. He won’t get that in the city.”

He won’t get that in a cage.

(Nyx isn’t ready for another glass cage)

“If you’re sure.” Libs claps him on the shoulder, gentle as always despite the rage burning in his eyes.

“ _Yeah_ ,” Nyx breathes, thinking about the promises made to four little boys he’d failed and the one who he’d sworn would be _happy_ , above all else. “Yeah, I’m sure. Insomnia will still be there in a couple years.”

His son is more important than the war, than fighting, than revenge.

Phe deserves to grow up free.

Nyx is going to give him that.

* * *

He blinks, staring at the house that his son is running around exploring before turning to his mothers. “How the fuck did you afford this?”

Nyx _knows_ they didn’t bring all that much with them when they evacuated, nobody did. And he knows there’s no way that the property, especially with the beat-up car parked in front, came cheap. Yeah, they’d all picked up a couple of hunts recently – just for money for passage and necessities because the transports were only headed to Insomnia – but not enough to afford this.

His mum smirks.

His ma cackles.

A shiver runs down his spine. “Nevermind,” he says quickly, eyes wide. “I don’t want to know.”

He runs after his son, ignoring the way that they laugh at him. Nyx _really_ doesn’t want to know.

* * *

“Where’s uncle Libs?” Phe asks with a pout, turning away from where he was distracted by the market.

_No fucking clue_. “He’s busy,” he says easily, a smile on his face even as he slams out another _whre tf r u_ text behind his back to join the other dozen that haven’t been answered. “Do we have everything on gran’s list?” Nyx asks his son as a distraction and his smile softens as the 4 year old’s eyebrows draw together adorably as he thinks.

He almost coos even as he smashes out another text to Libs.

They were only in Lestallum to pick up some supplies and enrol Phe in the school (the local village one would have been easier but Nyx wants the best for his son and Lestallum’s primary schools are top-notch) and he’s somehow managed to _lose_ his brother.

A tiny hand tugs his shirt. “We need more eggs.” His son points in the direction of the stall.

“That’s great, thanks Phe.” He ruffles blond locks, flicks tiny braids, and heads over to buy the eggs with Phe hand in hand. Libs still hasn’t texted him.

Nyx is going to _kill_ him.

His phone buzzes and it’s at his ear in moments. “You finally done?” he hisses softly instead of the _where the fuck are you_ he wants to yell, and his gaze is still fixed on his son who is chatting happily with a stray cat.

_“Sorry_ ,” his brother says and even through the phone it sounds blank. Shocked.

He frowns, suddenly more worried than angry. “Everything alright?”

“ _I- ah. I think I just bought a pub?”_

“What-” _the fuck_. Phe looks up, back at him, and Nyx smiles back – waving for him to continue his conversation. “Libs. What.”

_“I don’t know, Nyx.”_ He says blankly. _“I was just- chatting to the owner and we got talking about our old dream and the next thing I know I own a **pub**.”_

He pulls back the phone, stares at it incredulously, brings it back to his ear as his brother babbles.

The next time someone says he’s the one that weird things happen to, he’s directing them towards this. This is not his fault. He had nothing to do with this.

What the actual fuck.

* * *

He stares at the pub’s new sign, Libs standing next to him. _Wolves Gorge_ stares back. “And you people say _I’m_ bad at naming things.”

Libs huffs. “You are.”

“You _literally_ named your bar after the Lucian translations of our clan names.”

“And you named your son _sleepy_.”

Nyx rolls his eyes. “His name is Morpheus.”

“Even you call him Phe ninety percent of the time, Nyx. You can’t talk.”

He gestures at the sign attached to the front of the pub. “ _Neither can you_.” He says, shoving Libs in the shoulder. Libs shoves him back.

(A brotherly brawl isn’t the worst sort of christening the new pub could get)

* * *

It’s like he blinks and it’s Phe’s 5th birthday (and that lie comes easier, now, after all these years).

They can’t take the usual trip down to the docks and the markets there, can’t wander through Galahdian stalls and let Phe pick out little trinkets that he’ll choose to share for himself. But Libs can still bake a cake and Ma can still cook a feast and Selena still pops up with a new scarf and Mum and Phe still roll about in the garden in the early hours of the morning.

Nyx can still take his son out.

He borrows the car and an old camera that is floating about the house for some reason and he drives them to a place that he memorised the route to the moment he heard about it. He even called ahead, made sure it was alright, because he doesn’t want anything to go wrong.

Morpheus is confused the entire trip, asking where they were going and staring out of the window like he can figure it out himself, and Nyx smiles as his son’s eyes widen when they pull up at Wiz’s Chocobo Farm.

“Daddy…?” He whispers, Ulric eyes fixed on yellow feathers just visible.

Nyx grins, pulling his baby boy onto his shoulders. “How’d you like to ride a chocobo, Phe?”

The screech that gets causes him to wince and Phe _leaps_ from his shoulders in a way that makes his heart jump to his throat, but then his son is babbling and bouncing and grasping his hand to drag him along because “come _on_ , you’re not fast enough, _daddy_ , chocobos!”

He laughs, bright and happy, and the weight on his chest lightens a little. They may have lost their home, but their family is still here.

Lifting the camera, Nyx starts taking dozens of pictures of Phe’s joyful face as he clambers onto a chocobo and holds fast to the reigns, one of Wiz’s staff slowly leading them along.

Nyx looks at his son, happy and bright and giggling, and he knows that this was a good idea.

(Even later, when Phe doesn’t want to leave. Even later, when he doesn’t want to go to bed at bedtime. Even later, when their house slowly fills with chocobo themed items and his son takes to begging for a chocobo of his own for every birthday afterwards, he doesn’t regret it.

His son is happy. He’s _free_.

Nyx will never regret that)

* * *

“Ma! Mum!” Nyx looks up as Libs and Selena wander in, dirty and dusty with shit-eating grins on their faces, and he immediately puts the paperwork for the pub (how did he end up doing that again?) and Phe’s school trip down and away.

He opens his mouth, eyes narrowed, to ask what they’ve done.

A skinny girl around Selena’s age with hair as wild as Phe hovers hesitantly in the doorway, peering into the room warily with shadowed eyes.

Nyx closes his mouth; he has a pretty good idea what they’ve done.

The mums’ clatter in from the back, paint-stained and grass-stained and Nyx doesn’t want to know. Nope. He’s not thinking about it. Ever. Not at all.

He looks at his siblings instead and tries to focus on whatever they’ve gotten into now instead.

“Yes, Libertus?” Mum asks, raising the eyebrow of doom. Ma grins, wide and toothy, and Nyx shuffles towards the window a little bit. He loves his siblings, he does, but not enough to get in the way of this.

Libs, proving his lauded sense of self-preservation, steps backwards.

Selena, proving herself insane again, grins wildly and gestures at the unnamed girl. “This is Crowe, she’s ours now.” She says easily, confidently, as if saying it made it true which- okay. Crowe doesn’t say a word to either accept or refute the claim, just watches them all with those haunted eyes and Nyx can understand why his siblings claimed her.

(Ulric’s have always had a thing for damaged people)

Mum sighs tiredly. “I had hoped you wouldn’t take after your brother.”

He draws himself up. “Oi!”

“Look at her mum, we couldn’t just leave her. She helped us with the hunt and she’s great in a fight and really fiery, Crowe will fit right in!”

“Does Crowe even want to be her-” The question is cut off as his son runs into the room, looking around curiously before latching onto the new person.

Phe runs up to her. “Hi!” He chirps, blue eyes bright as he stares at wild hair and red-brown eyes. “Crowe is a bird. You’re a bird, like me!”

Crowe blinks. Stares. Blinks again. And then she crouches down and smirks – wild and vicious but softened. “You’re a chocobo.” She says gruffly, ruffling spikey hair and Nyx knows that Selena was right.

She’ll fit right in with them.

* * *

Nyx has no idea why he’s halfway up the sturdiest tree by their house with a hammer between his teeth, nails behind his ears, and a plank of wood precariously balanced on a branch beside him.

He thinks it has something to do with the five-year-old staring up at him with begging blue eyes – a look that Crowe and Selena had teamed up to teach him – and a picture of a treehouse in a magazine. And the fact that he’s a pushover for his son which isn’t really a surprise, but Nyx is still pretty sure he doesn’t remember agreeing to this?

Glancing down at a hopeful face, he winces and pushes away thoughts of just giving up.

It really doesn’t matter if he agreed to it when Phe looks like that.

(Even if he has no idea what on Eos he’s doing – how _does_ someone build a treehouse anyway?)

Sometime later, a small rubber ball bounces of off the trunk below him. “Daddy! Hurry up!” Phe demands. He has a second ball in his hands.

Nyx frowns down at his son. “Phe, you know you shouldn’t throw things at people; especially when they’re distracted.”

“No.” He screws up his face angrily and throws the second ball and Nyx hides a wince as it bounces off his thigh with more force than you’d think a tiny person could use.

“ _Morpheus Ulric_ -”

A chocobo teddy is launched at him by the red-faced boy with a scream that abruptly cuts off as his son disappears in a flash of firelight and a crackle of silver, appearing mid-air besides Mr Choco like lightning. Nyx throws himself from the tree, _reaching_ with his own magic and wrapping it around his son and then – in a ripple of green – his arms can do the same and he pulls Phe close and rolls so his back is facing the approaching ground even as he _pulls_ instinctively with his magic.

They land in a tangle of limbs and lightning in the dirt near the tree.

Phe screams into his chest, wide-eyed with delayed shock, and Nyx drapes his magic over him in comfort like he used to years ago.

(He’s not burning)

“Fuck,” Nyx says, looking down at his son whose eyes are still flecked with orange, at the chocobo plush that sits on the ground and still reeks of magic. (There’s no burn in his veins, no ache in his lungs, no fire flickering at his skin). His heartbeat is loud in his ears, in his chest, and his arms shake with fear for his baby. (Why isn’t Nyx burning?). He swallows.

Ozone sits heavy on the back of his tongue.

_Fuck_.

* * *

The weekend trips into the dense forests start, after that.

Duscae is known for its storms – not as much as Galahd was but enough that Nyx doesn’t worry as much as he might otherwise. It’s easy enough to wait for the heavy clouds and the thick trees to cover anything that might look strange. The storms are a comfort, are protection, and Nyx can feel Grandfather Ramuh’s power in the swirling winds and flashes of lightning.

Hiding Nyx and his son as they practice what Grandfather taught Nyx all he could just a decade ago and Nyx can almost feel his avatar as he guides his son through feeling his magic. Through holding it close, keeping it quiet and hidden.

Keeping it down and controlled, so that it doesn’t burst out. So that it doesn’t _burn_.

He won’t always be able to – Morpheus is younger than Nyx was, and he never managed it constantly at that age – but once he can then he can move onto teaching him about the elements and _movement_.

Nyx has always been best at lightning. Like his grandfather.

In the part of his mind that isn’t scared of what magic will do to his son, he wonders what Phe will like best.

* * *

Time passes, months go by, accidents happen but never with magic where anyone can see.

Phe turns six.

* * *

“I have been _betrayed_. Betrayed by my _own mothers_. **_Betrayed_**.”

Phe laughs at him and pats his face with a “silly daddy,” but his attention isn’t on him as he scrambles out of his arms to his grandmothers.

“ _Betrayed_ ,” Nyx hisses at them and they grin. “How _dare_ you get my son his favourite gift. _How dare you_.”

“You should have thought of it first then, brat.”

He hisses again, hands flapping towards his son who was wide-eyed and babbling at his new favourite birthday gift in its stall. “You bought him a _chocobo_.”

Ma reaches over and pats him on the face condescendingly, leaning on mum when she nearly unbalances. “Better luck next year.”

Nyx’s eye twitches. He smiles.

This is war.

* * *

Time goes by. Phe loves his school. Selena starts hunting properly and Crowe joins her.

They move in with Libs above the pub for most of the week; it’s easier for Phe’s school and Nyx starts picking up shifts during the daytime before he picks his kid up. He gets to know the regulars and he and Libs work shoulder to shoulder with Nyx on the bar and Libs in the kitchen. Nyx picks up Phe in the afternoons and helps him with his homework in the corner booth and they explore the city before the evening shifts. He loves it. They all do.

At the weekends, they go home to nana and gran. Crowe has her own room and she’s Phe’s second favourite person. There’s magic training and chocobo rides and gardening with nana and painting with gran. Phe’s clothes are stained with mud and paint and grass and Nyx grabs him and they roll around in the dirt.

There are visits to the beach and the ponds and the lakes, dancing in the storms and swimming in rivers and evenings by firelight and random visits from the aunties that always have Phe hyped on sugar and refusing to go to bed.

Time goes by, his son starts to grow up and he’s happy.

Phe is healthy and happy and free. He makes friends and he loses them, he watches stupid tv programmes that Nyx doesn’t understand and likes music that makes them cringe and starts baking with Uncle Libs. He braids beads into his hair and goes running with his dad and he’s built like his gran and his uncle Libs and Phe uses that to his advantage when wrestling.

There are birthdays and parties and gifts and quiet days and tantrums and fights and quiet nights reading stories before bed.

Time goes by.

* * *

It feels like he barely blinks and his little boy is almost eight, running off with friends in the afternoons and getting into all sorts of trouble and making up a dozen games an evening for them to play.

He loves it – loves the slight curl to Phe’s hair that has it bouncing outwards, loves the flecks of silver in Ulric blue eyes, loves the bright smile on his sons face as he babbles about his day and his friends and this game they really want to play.

They’re walking home from school; Phe stayed late for gymnastics and the sun is already starting to go down, bathing Lestallum in orange as the lights start to flick on.

“And then- and _then_ …” Morpheus is describing, one hand clasped in Nyx’s and the other holding a shopping bag which is swigging around wildly as he gestures. “…I had to wiggle under the bench and sneak up on-”

His son stops.

“Phe?” He asks, coming to a stop and looking at his son who has his head tilted and a frown on his lips. His eyes scan the area but he doesn’t see anything. “What’s wron-”

Morpheus drops his hand and darts off into a darkened alley before he can stop him. Nyx curses, following after him with mutters about grounding, and his heart is beating hard in his chest in the second it takes his eyes to adjust to the darkness.

His son is crouching down in front of a cardboard box, tucked into the mouth of the alleyway, and he turns to him with wide, hopeful eyes. “Can we keep them, daddy?”

Nyx blinks. Wha- “Phe…”

“We have to help them,” his eight-year-old son says fiercely, an adorable scowl on his little face, and Nyx moves closer, peering over his shoulder.

Entwined in the box are two tiny, gooey bundles of fur, blonde and black mixed together so closely that Nyx can’t see where one starts and the other ends. Phe picks them up carefully, cradling them to his jumper as he peers up at him hopefully.

His heart wrenches. “ _Phe-”_ They already have the chocobo at the farm, they can’t just take in two abandoned puppies.

“ _Please_.”

The puppies whine near silently with him, burrowing blindly into the source of heat, and Nyx feels himself bend as Morpheus turns the puppy dog eyes on him.

Fuck.

“Okay,” he says, defeated and he’s probably going to regret this. Phe cheers. “ _But_ -” he cuts him off. “We’re taking them to the vet first and we have to ask Libs. If either of those people say no, we can’t keep them, then we won’t.”

Phe nods seriously even as he clutches the puppies closer and the blond one tries to wiggle free. “Okay, daddy.”

As he bends down to pick up the dropped shopping bag and the box – because Phe wouldn’t be able to carry the puppies all the way – he hears his sons whisper. “ _I’m gonna call you Prompto and Hero.”_

Nyx’s heart melts.

* * *

Time passes. It always does.

* * *

“Who wants hot chocolate?” He calls and gets a handful of positive responses, enough that he grabs a tray instead of trying to juggle half a dozen mugs filled to the frothy brim.

Long experience makes a tray easy to balance as he hip-bumps the door open and steps out into the cooling summer night. The bonfire is a comforting wall of heat as he stoops down to hand out drinks – making sure Phe gets the unspiked version with extra cream and sprinkles.

Selena hums into his mug. “Why is it the only good stuff you can make are drinks?”

He shrugs, hiding his grin behind his own mug with extra cream and sprinkles. “I dunno, I’m pretty good at making kids too.”

His sister sputters and he laughs, bracing his mug against his knees as ‘Lena chokes and coughs and Nyx shakes with laughter.

“You bitch.”

“Language.”

She lunges at him and Nyx pushes his mug onto Libs for safekeeping before he rolls out of her reach and pushes himself to his feet, staying just out of the clasping hands grabbing for him as she chases him around the fire pit and their family laughs.

Phe laughs the loudest and it sounds like sunlight.

* * *

Eventually, Selena gives up.

And by that he means that she tackles him, rubs his face in the dirt, curses at him when he does the same to her, and then goes back to being sprawled in Crowe’s lap while swearing her revenge.

Nyx laughs so hard he could cry and tells her to bring it while their mother’s roll their eyes and Crowe and Libs try to stay out of it (they’ll fail, Nyx and Selena won’t let them keep their distance).

They eat meat skewers cooked over the bonfire and the scent of the spice lingers long after the bag of marshmallows are dragged out and Mum is helping Phe as he seriously toasts his own _like a big boy because I’m almost_ nine _daddy, I’m basically an adult_.

He snaps a quick picture with his camera – Libs with his chocolate moustache, Selena and Ma discussing something quietly but fiercely with Ma’s spare leg being waved around as a point, Crowe half-asleep and cuddled up with the dogs with her feet pressed against ‘Lena’s thigh, Phe with his serious frown and Mum with her laughing eyes as she helps him hold the skewer, the fire burning warm in the background.

He takes a picture and then he takes a dozen more because he doesn’t know when the next time they’ll be able to get together like this will be but this is his family.

Nyx lowers the camera after catching Phe’s triumphant look as he holds up his marshmallow and sends his mum a sheepish grin as she eyes him.

“You’re such a sap, Ulric.” His sister (in-law? Adoptive? Selena and Crowe need to figure things out) flops down behind him.

“He used to be worse,” Libs mutters and Nyx leans around her to shove him.

He eyes her. “Takes one to know one, Altius,” he says, glancing at the pups who were still nosing at her for more treats.

This time, it’s Crowe that shoves _him_ and Nyx laughs, rolling with the force and letting himself flop dramatically to the ground. “You killed me.”

Crowe rolls her eyes but then she lowers her voice, directing it to just him and Libs. “A friend told me that the Kingsglaive is doing a second round of volunteer recruitment like they did five years ago. They apparently need the numbers.”

He freezes, thinking about it, and he can feel Libs’ eyes on him. His brother won’t join if he doesn’t, he’s always known that, but Nyx also knows that he wants to. Knows he wants to fight back, wants to make the world safer.

And… so does Nyx.

He thinks back to that conversation that they had five years ago in that hotel room. He thinks of Insomnia, thinks of the glaive, thinks of the pub and their quiet life that they’d be leaving, and then he thinks about his son. Thinks about what Niflheim would do, if they knew about him.

Thinks about what they already _had_ done.

After that, Insomnia doesn’t feel as much like a cage but-

Nyx sits up. “Phe,” he calls, and his son turns to him with curious eyes and two dogs on his lap. “How do you feel about moving to Insomnia?”

It isn’t just his decision to make.

* * *

* * *

Two weeks before they move, dad takes him to their clearing and sits him down.

He’s wearing the serious face – the same one he had when they talked about keeping their magic secret, when dad explained what the move would mean for them both and their lives, when he’d asked dad about what the tattoo on his chest means – and he feels himself sitting up straighter. “Dad?”

“Do you know why we have magic, Morpheus?”

Phe blinks. He’s never really thought about it. Magic is just something that he and his dad have that the rest of the family doesn’t, a secret just for them that lets him feel his dad deep in his chest and know he’s safe. “I thought- maybe Grandfather gave it to you? And I got it cos I’m yours?” He offers.

Dad laughs softly, eyes lighting up for a moment before he shakes his head. “No, little bird. Grandfather helped me learn how to use my magic, but I was born with it – just like you were.”

He frowns, eyebrows drawing together. “But nana doesn’t have magic. And neither do Uncle Libs and Aunt ‘Lena.” If they didn’t have magic and it wasn’t from grandfather, why do he and his dad have it?

“You’re right, they don’t have magic. I have magic because of my father.”

“You have a dad?” He blurts out stupidly, eyes wide. Nobody ever talked about his grandfather and Phe just thought nana had willed dad into existence because _nana_.

His dad just hums with a weird look on his face. “Uh-huh.”

“Who’s your dad?” Phe asks after a long moment where dad says nothing.

Dad stills. “Regis Lucis Caelum,” he says quietly, so quietly that Phe has to lean forward just to hear him.

He blinks. Looks at his dad. Blinks again. “Huh.” He says, mildly shocked that nana _hadn’t_ just willed dad into existence. Or maybe she had, and she’d needed royalty to do it? Is that a royal thing, can they will people into existence? Morpheus shrugs. “Okay.”

A beat.

Phe stares at his dad. His dad stares at him, waiting. He wracks his mind for a question.

“Do they know?” he asks, and his dad smiles a smile that he never wants to see again.

“They wouldn’t care even if they did,” Dad says, quiet and sure – the same way that he is when guiding him through katas – and Phe doesn’t understand. His dad is the _best_.

Yeah, his aunt ‘Lena is scary awesome, and his nana is the strongest, and uncle Libs gives great hugs, and Crowe is just so cool, and nobody can beat gran in the kitchen or an easel but…

Dad’s a _hero_.

And, as Phe jumps his dad and wraps his arms around him and _reaches_ with his magic like dad does to him, he thinks that they’re stupid idiots for not wanting his dad. They don’t know what they’re missing out on.

* * *

Insomnia is weird.

There’re so many people, like the markets in Lestallum (and a place he can just about remember by the sea) but all the time. And it’s so grey. The buildings and the roads and the walls are just. Grey. There’s no grass or big trees and only a few plants.

It’s so loud, too, and he misses nana and gran and the pub and home. He’s still trying to get used to his dad not being there all the time and he-

Phe isn’t sure he likes it.

But school is good, bigger than his old one and he misses his friends but people are mostly friendly and he can keep up well enough. The buildings are big and dad takes him up roof sometimes and the city is so pretty from up there. He likes the Galahdian sector as well, it’s so colourful and bright and it smells like _home_ in a way that Phe doesn’t really get.

He likes that there’s always people around and aunt Crowe promised to teach him out to properly pick locks and he sees more of aunt ‘Lena now cos she looks after him when patrols line up and dad said he might be able to sign up for a climbing class or something.

And dad’s happy, being able to do something, even Phe can see that and it makes him happy. Especially when everyone is home and they can eat together like they used to.

Insomnia is weird, but Phe gets used to it.

* * *

“Hero, Prom!” Phe calls cheerfully, bouncing on his feet as the dogs bound up to him. He’s still running high on finishing primary and his dad telling him that he’s allowed to walk the dogs on his own as long as he takes a knife and keeps his phone on him, so he happily clips on their leads and springs out of the door with a “be back soon!”

Like always, Hero matches his pace while Prom tries to run his arm off, barking happily all the way for Phe to speed up already.

It’s not long before they reach the park and Phe unclips their leads, grinning as they stare at him unmoving.

“What?” he asks and Hero and Prom pant and grin, bums wagging with their tails. “I’ve not got anything,” he tells them.

Their tails keep wagging.

Phe laughs, pulling out the ball and launching it off before they can see it properly. Prom shoots off, Hero half a length behind him, but Phe can’t help but giggle as the ball bounces off of Prom’s snout and lands in Hero’s mouth. He shakes his head. “You’ve really gotta learn to catch, Prom. Otherwise, you’re never gonna get a ball from your brother,” he says as Hero drops the ball at his feet.

Prompto barks.

“Hey.”

Phe turns at the call and blinks, looking up at a boy who can’t be more than a couple years older than him by the secondary uniform but is already as tall as aunt ‘Lena. Wow. “Yeah? Wow, you’re tall.” He blushes but the other boy just laughs.

“I am tall. They friendly?” He asks and Phe nods.

“Yeah, they’re friendly, you might get a bunch of kisses though.” He warns but the guy, and the kid peeking out from behind him that looks like his sister, don’t seem bothered. “Hero, Prompto, sit.” They sit, tongues lolling and giant grins still on their little doggy faces. “You can come say hello,” he tells them.

The big guy crouches down, holding out a hand, and his little sister copies him, giggling when Prom licks at her fingers. Hero noses at the big guy before pressing his hand into his fingers for a good scratch and Phe grins.

He crouches down. “This,” he scrubs a golden head, “is Prompto. He’s fast but a bit of a dope, the number of times he’s run into walls. But he’s the chillest dog you’ll ever meet – never growls, just grins at the other dogs that growl at him. Sometimes he’ll even pat them on the face to get them to stop growling.”

The kid giggles and the big guy smirks.

“And _this_ ,” he pats Hero’s flank as he snuggles into the big guy’s hand, “is Hero. Hero likes to open doors. Hero likes to sneak in and sleep in your bed. Hero is especially fond of stretching his neck to steal the chicken from the counter. But he’s a great dog, always watching out the window and loves a good cuddle, when I was younger he used to go and get my toys for me if I was sad because he’s such a good boy, _yes he is_.”

Prom turns his head to look at him and Phe laughs. “Yes, you’re good boy too Prom, yes you are.”

The siblings cuddle and pet the dogs until both of them are bouncing with restrained energy and Phe sends them a rueful smile as he lobs the ball for them again. The kid is pouting as she stands up. “I’m here most days at around this time if you want to come say hello to them again.” He offers, mostly because the kid looks so sad.

She perks right up and the big guy sends him a thankful look. “I’m Gladio,” he murmurs as he picks his sister up. “This is Iris. It was nice meeting you. Thanks for letting us say hi to your dogs, they’re well trained.”

“Phe,” he says with a slightly wider smile. “Thanks. And it’s no problem, they like the attention.”

They turn away and Phe turns his attention back to the dogs as the ball is dropped at his feet again, but he thinks he’ll see them again. He hopes so anyway, they seemed like fun.

“Go fetch,” he yells, throwing the ball as far as he can.

Prompto and Hero chase after it, barking happily, and Phe grins.

* * *

It's not that Phe didn’t know that he’s going to the same school as the Prince, it’d be hard not to considering the paperwork dad had to sign, it’s just that. He didn’t know they’d be in the same year.

Prince Noctis is his age, yeah, but based on the celebrations he’s old enough to be slotted into the year before as one of the youngest there, so it’s odd to walk into form and see him there.

His first thought, after he’s sat down, is _wow he’s smaller than I am how is he supposed to be my uncle?_

His second thought is _someone needs to feed this kid and sit him in the sun for a while, he’s so skinny and pale_.

Phe’s third thought about the Prince of Lucis is _huh. That’s where we get the nose from then_. Because that’s his dad’s nose staring at him from the Prince’s face and okay. Guess dad would have had to get something besides the magic from the king.

And Morpheus Ulric’s final thought before their form tutor gets their attention is _he looks lonely_.

It’s the last thought that sticks with him.

* * *

He makes the decision as he’s lying on the floor after tea, one dog pinning his legs and the other draped over his chest. “I’m going to make friends with him,” he tells the ceiling, thinking about the boy who sat in the back corner of every class – alone and closed off and looking silently lonely as everyone else talked and made friends.

“Befriend who?” Uncle Libs asks as he drops down on the sofa at his head.

“Prince Noctis.”

Uncle Libs blinks. “Why?” He asks, quiet and guarded and closed off – the way he always is when they talk about the royal family.

Phe shrugs, giggling when Prom licks at his chin in protest. “’cos he looked lonely.” He knows how that feels – he’s been the new kid three times over and it’s always better when people reach out to you and be friendly.

“He looked lonely,” Uncle Libs deadpans.

“Yeah.” He agrees like it’s simple and it is - he looked lonely so Phe is going to make friends with him.

His uncle sighs, reaching down to ruffle his hair. “You’re your father’s son,” he says and it probably isn’t a compliment; it doesn’t sound like one, that’s the tone uncle Libs uses when Dad is being an idiot.

But Phe _is_ his father’s son.

He can’t think of anything better than acting like dad does.

* * *

He slips into the empty seat beside him with a grin. “Hey,” he says, holding out his hand. “I’m Morpheus, but everyone just calls me Phe. Nice to meet you.”

Prince Noctis holds out his hand, his eyes wide with shock and something almost like hope, and shakes his. “Noctis,” he says, challenge and plea.

“Noctis,” Phe agrees. “How did you find the chem homework? I can’t believe she set us homework on the _first day_.”

The Prince smiles, small but there. “I know right,” he says and he looks like the 12-year-old he is. “She could have given us a day to get settled in before piling it on us.”

Phe thinks that this is the start of a very good friendship.

* * *

They end up eating lunch together.

Noctis’ food is delicious if a little bland for his tastes and Phe’s food is a bit spicy for him apparently but Noctis quickly falls in love with the curry recipe.

They end up chatting about chocobo’s and fishing and kings knight for the entire lunch period and the start of next lesson and from that moment on they’re inseparable while they’re at school.

* * *

A month later, Noctis lays into a teacher who tries to write Phe up for his braids, saying that they’re a violation of the uniform.

Phe decides then and there that he’s never going to let Noct go.

* * *

“Phe!”

He jogs slowly over to Noct, who’s chatting with a boy from a couple years above them, lifting his hand to wave at them both. “What’s up?”

Noct smiles. “Just realised that you haven’t met Iggy yet, he’s my advisor and I’ve known him since I was like. Five.”

“You were three, Your Highness.” The older boy – Iggy? – interjects, eying them both with a stern look that reminds him of his nana.

Phe grins. “Hey, Morpheus Ulric. Call me Phe.”

“Ignis Scientia,” he says with a raised eyebrow. “A pleasure.”

“You too.” A pause. “Hey, are you the Iggy Noct says makes his lunches? Cos I gotta say, that’s the best food I’ve tried outside of my grans.”

Ignis perks up a little, eyes flashing with pride behind glasses, and then they’re talking food and what Noct likes from his lunch and cool.

Phe has another friend.

He can’t wait to ring dad and tell him.

* * *

Phe blinks.

Noct’s shield blinks back.

Ignis and Noct stare between them.

“Gladio?” He asks, very confused.

His friend looks just as confused as he does. “Phe? You’re Noctis’ new friend?”

“You’re Noct’s Shield?”

They blink at each other, suddenly realising that despite hours of conversation over the past nine months, neither had ever offered their full names. And when talking about Noct they hadn’t mentioned him by name.

“Oops,” Phe says, wide-eyed.

Gladio nods, but he seems to be dealing with the shock better than he is. “We probably should have realised.” He says slowly. And yeah, they probably should have. They’d definitely talked about Noct to each other before.

“Yeah,” he agrees.

They stare at each other, having no idea how to process this.

“How do you know each other,” Noct interjects impatiently, still looking very confused, and Iggy raises an eyebrow of doom.

Phe glances at Gladio who shrugs. “I was walking my dogs and Gladio and Iris came to say hello.”

Noct and Iggy blink, surprised.

He looks at Gladio and then back to the others and then shrugs himself. “Want to meet them, they’re adorable.” He offers.

Gladio nods in agreement at his back. Ignis and Noct continue to stare.

Phe takes his friends to meet his dogs.

* * *

They love his dogs. (of course, they do)

But they also love the pictures that cover half the walls of the flat and the stories he tells about the places in them and they’re happy to tag along when he takes the dogs out for a walk, so the conversation about everywhere Phe has been continues as he guides them through the Galahdian sector.

It’s different from the rest of Insomnia and his friends are obviously shocked, standing out like a sore thumb amongst beads and braids and _Galahd_. But Gladio ends up buying a present for Iris and a book for himself from one of the market stall and Noct ends up discussing lures or something with the local fishmonger and Iggy falls in love with the spices on offer.

It’s fun.

(Phe’s already making plans to bring them to one of the festival days next winter)

* * *

“Dad, what do I get Noct for his birthday?” He asks desperately.

The line crackles. _“What does he like?”_

“Er- kings knight, fishing, sleeping, assassin’s creed-”

_“No playing those games until you’re at least 13.”_ Phe can _hear_ his dad’s frown as he interjects.

He rolls his eyes. “I _know_ dad. But what should I get Noct? He’s like. The Prince.” Phe manages to forget that most of the time, but what were you supposed to buy someone rich?

Dad hums. _“I know.”_ He winces because of course he would, most of the time Phe manages to forget the weirdness that is his best friend being his biological uncle. _“A gift doesn’t need to be expensive, Phe, it just needs to be something your friend will like. Unique helps, but it’s not necessary. You know him best, what will he be happy to see?”_

He thinks of Noct, thinks of when he smiles the brightest, and he has an idea. Phe breathes a sigh of relief. “Thanks, Dad, I love you.”

_“Love you too, little bird. Now, how has your week been outside of gift shopping…”_

(Noct loves his gift of a selection of different lures recommended by Joey the fishmonger and the book of the most obscure fishing spots on the continent)

* * *

He blinks at his phone. Reads the text once. Twice.

“Gladio,” he calls slowly, “You can drive, right?”

His friends turn to him. The big guy nods. “Yeah,” he glances out of the window at the light rain. “You need a lift home? It’s going pretty heavy out there.”

Phe shakes his head. “It’s only a light shower,” he protests and his friends roll their eyes at him. Noct snorts. “Can you give me a lift to the glaive compound at the Citadel?” He asks, still staring down at his phone and the words written there.

Silence.

He looks at his friends only to find them all staring at him. “What?”

Ignis clears his throat. “I believe we are all wondering why it is you would need to go to the glaive compound of all places at this time of day.”

Morpheus frowns, a little confused. “My dad just texted me. He’s back from deployment and I’d like to surprise him before he gets home.”

His best friend coughs while Gladio stands and starts collecting his stuff. “Your dad’s a glaive?” Noct chokes out and Phe nods.

“My dad, my uncle, and one of my aunts, yeah. That’s why we moved to the city. Didn’t I tell you?” He’s pretty sure he mentioned it. Phe glances at Gladio. Gladio shrugs. Maybe he hadn’t?

“Would you mind if we came as well?” Ignis asks politely, a slight frown between his eyebrows, and the thirteen-year-old shrugs in agreement.

“Sure Iggy, I don’t mind. Dad’s been wanting to meet you all anyway, the timings just been really bad.”

They all pile into the car – Iggy and Gladio up front and Phe and Noct in the back, and Phe can’t help but stare at his phone and the text that says his dad is _home_ and _they’ll be back for dinner_ and Phe is so happy he can’t help but smile. It’s been _weeks_ and he misses his family and he can’t wait to see them again.

“So, ah-” Noct says, eyes flickering everywhere awkwardly. “Your family moved to the city so your dad could join the glaive?”

Phe nods. “Dad and Uncle Libs and Aunt Crowe wanted to join so we moved here when I was 9. Aunt ‘Lena half moved with us and she looks after me when everyone gets deployed at the same time but she’s a hunter. Nana says Aunt ‘Lena doesn’t do mess well with rules and it’s best to let her do whatever.”

“That explains how you passed the background check so quickly,” Iggy hums, getting an elbow in the side from Gladio for his words.

He just laughs. “Yeah, already had half my family on file.”

They pull up to the Citadel and Phe pulls his phone out to shoot his dad a text, darting from the car the moment it rolls to a stop and letting the rain soak into his clothes as he stares at the doors and feels the silver-green warmth that is _dad_ move closer.

And closer.

And _closer_.

The door opens and Phe throws himself forwards into his dad’s arms, nearly sending them both flying to the ground. His dad laughs and ruffles his hair. “Dad…” He whines, burying his face in a dirty coat.

“Missed you too, little bird,” dad murmurs, his hand large and warm on Phe’s back and Phe just breathes, his fists tight in the back of his shirt as he shakes.

Eventually – far too quickly, after an eternity – Phe pulls back and looks up at his dad’s face. He looks tired and desperately needs a shower, but he’s okay. He feels fine.

Phe smiles, bright and happy and a little shaky but his dad’s _home_ and _safe_ and who can really blame him. “I missed you so much dad,” he says and when his dad smiles it’s a little sad and a lot proud.

“I know Phe,” he says, hand running up and down his back. “Were you good for Selena?” He gives his dad the innocent eyes and the man laughs, pulling him in for another hug before looking over the top of his head curiously. “And who is this?” He asks even though Phe _knows_ he already knows.

He turns back to his friends to introduce them, only to find them all staring at him again. “What?”

Noct hisses like the cat he is, flapping his hands about. Iggy clears his throat once, twice.

Gladio rolls his eyes a little but he’s still staring. “You never mentioned that your dad is the _Hero of the Kingsglaive.”_

Morpheus Ulric blinks. Looks up at his father, _Nyx Ulric_. Looks back to his friends. Frowns. “Who did you think I meant when I said that my dad was a glaive?” He asks, honestly curious; he’d figured they’d have made the connection.

_“Not him.”_ Noct hisses out, his eyes wide with something like hero worship. They have good taste, dad’s the best.

“My name’s Ulric…?”

They stare at him.

His dad laughs, loud and bright and tired, and leans over his shoulder to grab the camera and snap a picture of his son’s three friends standing there, open-mouthed and in shock. “Nice friends you have there Phe.”

Phe looks at the picture, at his dad, and then back to his friends. His smile is slow but bright and happy. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

* * *

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> basically this is what happens when an angst writer tries to write fluff. I know I glossed over a lot but this was supposed to be a short little what-if type thing and it turned into a bloody monster so w/e. also this is pretty much unedited cos i wanted to get it out in february which ends in. less than two hours where I am rn so if there are mistakes please don't kill me i've spent two weeks writing this monster
> 
> hope you like it, tell me what you think, if i'm missing any tags then give me a shout, i'm going to bed


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